Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, Daughter Am I, More Deaths Than One, and A Spark of Heavenly Fire. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.”

Recording Your Character’s Voice by Aaron Paul Lazar

I’m wondering if every author needs to take voice-over training. Especially if they want to record their works in audio formats.

Readers like hearing the author read. Right? They know that only the author really understands the nuances of each sentence, the way it was supposed to be said aloud. I do believe this, and wish I could download books read by Dean Koontz himself, or that John D. MacDonald could come down from Heaven for a while to record his Travis MacGee series for us. Wouldn’t that be cool?

When you’re reading from your own character’s point of view, you really have to get inside his head. You have to feel his pain, suffer his humiliations, and share in his joy.

Could you do that? If so, it’s a good sign that you really know your characters.

And what do you do if your character is of the opposite sex? I guess unless you’re a woman with a very deep voice, or a man who does a reasonable falsetto, you’ve got to find someone who fits that mold, a friend who can sound like your character and really get inside his or her brain.

Would you like to get to know a character, even before you read his book?

Well, I never took acting lessons, but I sat in the back of the auditorium while my daughter performed in fifteen musicals and plays. Maybe a little of the training rubbed off on me. I don’t know.

Regardless, I figured it was a good idea to help create a little buzz for my debut book in my new green marble series by writing a letter from Sam Moore to his future readers. Would you like to hear it? See what you think and please let me know, below.

Sam Moore’s most intimate and tortured thoughts are in this video. It’s not really a normal video, but the only way to get audio on YouTube or other sites is to put a jpeg image behind it and save it as a movie file. ;o) Took me all day to figure that out – shows you how bright I am. And I didn’t want to make it into a book trailer, for Heaven’s sake. I already have one of those!

Sam Moore is a retired country doctor in the new paranormal mystery series, Moore Mysteries. The first book just came out via Twilight Times Books, and you can read the first few chapters here: Healey’s Cave .

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Aaron Paul Lazar writes to soothe his soul. The author of LeGarde Mysteries and Moore Mysteries enjoys the Genesee Valley countryside in upstate New York, where his characters embrace life, play with their dogs and grandkids, grow sumptuous gardens, and chase bad guys. Visit his websites at www.legardemysteries.com and www.mooremysteries.com and watch for his upcoming release, FIRESONG, coming Winter, 2010.

I love the trailer… now I have to buy the book! The video is a great idea and the passage chosen enhances my desire to read the story. The only thing that occurred to me is that Sam’s voice sounds a little too young to be reminiscing about “fifty long years ago”. (Is that a compliment or a criticism???) Not that a 62-year-old’s voice would always be a little rough around the edges, but I expected Sam to sound older, maybe pausing more during the reading, too, reflecting on his memories as we “retired folks” are prone to do. BTW, the cover art, and photo of it that was chosen to accompany the reading, is wonderful. :)

I enjoyed the video. I keep thinking I should try recording something, but I hate the sound of my recorded voice. Must be something to do with the teachers in elementary school. When I wouldn’t learn to write they tried putting me on tape, and the pen was just so much less scary than the microphone…

Books by Pat Bertram

Grief: The Great Yearning is not a how-to but a how-done, a compilation of letters, blog posts, and journal entries Pat Bertram wrote while struggling to survive her first year of grief. This is an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.

When twenty-five-year-old Mary Stuart learns she inherited a farm from her recently murdered grandparents -- grandparents her father claimed had died before she was born -- she becomes obsessed with finding out who they were and why someone wanted them dead.

In quarantined Colorado, where hundreds of thousands of people are dying from an unstoppable, bio-engineered disease, investigative reporter Greg Pullman risks everything to discover the truth: Who unleashed the deadly organism? And why?

Bob Stark returns to Denver after 18 years in SE Asia to discover that the mother he buried before he left is dead again. At her new funeral, he sees . . . himself. Is his other self a hoaxer, or is something more sinister going on?

Thirty-seven years after being abandoned on the doorstep of a remote cabin in Colorado, Becka Johnson returns to try to discover her identity, but she only finds more questions. Who has been looking for her all those years? And why are those same people interested in fellow newcomer Philip Hansen?